Nothing Left To Say
by Alensha
Summary: This short story is my tribute to Colleen McCullough's The Thorn Birds.


This short story is my tribute to Colleen McCullough's great novel _The Thorn Birds._ The idea of the story comes from a dream I had about Meggie and Luke after re-reading the story for the umpteenth time. :) It is set after Dane's death, or after the whole novel, I don't really know. To understand the story you have to read the novel. (Note: I completely ignored the miniseries _The Thorn Birds – The Missing Years._ Although it's a nice one, it would ruin my story.)  
  
  


**_Nothing Left To Say_**

  


  
Days and nights were passing by as monotonous as if in every dawn the same day was beginning. Although the house was full of people, in the past few years it seemed empty to Meggie, mostly because the young ones were far away. Now the emptiness was much more worse, since her only son Dane had died and her daughter Justine won't come home any more.  
  
And she'll never see Ralph again. Although they had seen each other very rarely – about once in a decade, as Meggie recalled –, it was a reassuring thought that at least he was contented with his life. After all, he had got everything he wanted – he was a cardinal of the Church, a good career for a parish priest he used to be. And now he's gone, too. Meggie couldn't bring herself to walk down to the vault where he and Dane had been buried.  
  
She walked in the garden, watching the roses but not noticing their beauty. Even the roses reminded her of everything she had lost. Ashes of roses. Ashes to ashes.  
  
She heard a car coming on the road and with a sigh she went back to the house to greet the visitor. She was standing on the veranda, and watched the man stepping out of the car. She recognized him only when he was standing before her and she heard his voice.  
  
"Hello Meg."  
  
"Luke O'Neill" she whispered. "What on earth are you doing here?"  
  
He looks good enough for an older man, although he must be over sixty now, Meggie thought. If I didn't know him so much, I'd even find him handsome.  
  
"I wanted to see you" he said.  
  
"Well, you did. Anything else?"  
  
"Don't be so rude, Meg, and let's go inside. I wanna say something."  
  
They settled down in the large living room, and Meggie poured him some tea, as if he were a mere guest, not her husband whom she left more than twenty years ago. Luke didn't waste the time, he got to the point.  
  
"You shouldn't have left me, Meg. I promised you we'll have a home on our own, didn't I? Now I have a homestead like this... no, even more bigger than this..."  
  
Braggin' like a child, Meggie thought.  
  
"...But I'm getting older and I thought it's time for our son to take over my duties. After all, all I have will be his. Surely he knows how to run an estate, he was brought up on Drogheda."  
  
Meggie felt as if a knife was twisted in her heart, yet her face was without expressions.  
  
Luke waited for a while, then asked: "What do you think, Meg?" Then he smiled. "Oh, I almost forgot that he is a grownup man now. I'll ask him and if he wants to come with me, you can nothing to stop him."  
  
Indeed I could do nothing. Both of my children are stubborn.  
  
Meggie watched her husband for a moment and felt a sudden desire to break him down, to tell him that the son he thinks his own had died. Still she couldn't do that. Not because she felt sorry for Luke – she pitied him for being such an useless bastard, but she never felt sorry for him –, but Dane belonged to her, only to her until the cruel God took him away, and now he belongs to her again, for ever. To share her pain with this stranger? No, she won't. She's not able to do that.  
  
"He won't be interested in your bloody homestead" she said. "He's in Rome. He became a priest."  
  
She saw the irritation on his face and remembered how much he was against Catholicism. She was glad to find something to hurt him.  
  
Luke remained silent for a minute. "And Justine?" he asked with a faint of hope.  
  
"She's an actress in London. And she finds country life rather dull."  
  
Luke looked at Meggie with strange curiosity, as if he suspected that she hasn't told everything... or was it only that he finally realized that this woman is – and always has been – a stranger to him, even through the years of their marriage?  
  
At last he stood up. "Well, I have to go now. Say a hello to your family in my name. Goodbye, Meg."  
  
As he walked out, Meggie realized how old he is, and now she felt sorry for him. She remembered how young and strong he was, and she also remembered herself at the age of twenty-three. How could I be so foolish to marry this stranger only because this faint likeness to Ralph? she asked herself. Now she was older and wiser, and it seems that Luke has changed this way, too. How awful is it that we must pay for wisdom with our youth.  
  
  


_The End_

  
  
27 August 2001  



End file.
